THE METABOLISM OF RADIOTHYROXINE IN EXOPHTHALMIC GOITER*†

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Abstract
INTRODUCTION THE preparation of thyroxine labeled with radioiodine by Joliot and co-workers in 1944 (1) has led to numerous studies of the behavior of this substance in animals (2–10), but in the human it has been investigated only recently. Albert and co-workers (11, 12) studied the distribution and fate of d-l-radiothyroxine in myxedematous patients after oral and intravenous administration. Myant and Pochin (13) made similar observations in normal, or euthyroid subjects, and mentioned briefly some results in a patient with exophthalmic goiter. The purpose of this paper is to report the results of tracer studies with radioactive thyroxine in 6 patients with thyrotoxicosis. MATERIALS AND METHODS Six patients with clinically active exophthalmic goiter volunteered as subjects of this study. None of the patients had received antithyroid drugs for one month, or iodine for eleven days, prior to the study. Pertinent data for each patient are give in Table 1.